


In This Valley

by Kats_watermelon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, memori week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 22:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14778449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kats_watermelon/pseuds/Kats_watermelon
Summary: written for day 1 of memori week, prompt: canon divergence





	In This Valley

Murphy’s head is pressed to the ladder when Miler comes back for him. He’s out of tears, out of words, out of hope.

“Murphy,” Miller says, his voice heavy. “Come on, man.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Murphy whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. “She’s dead and I’m next.”

Miller says nothing, just cuts the restraints around Murphy’s wrists. Murphy doesn’t move.

“Was she awake?” he asks. “Did she scream?”

“Murphy,” Miller says. “It’s not that simple-”

“How isn’t it simple?” Murphy demands, shooting to his feet. “What the fuck isn’t simple about this? She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“She’s not,” Miller says, and Murphy’s eyes snap to the open doors behind him. “She’s not dead, but Murphy, it’s not pretty.”

Murphy doesn’t care. He shoves past Miller and through the open doors. Nobody says anything as he freezes just past the doorway, staring at Emori. She’s lying on a pile of blankets on the floor, blisters and black blood and all he think is that he’s going to murder whoever put her in that goddamned chamber.

His feet move without him telling them to until he’s falling to his knees at her side, feeling with shaking fingers for a pulse at her neck. When he finds one, he almost sobs. He takes her left hand and presses it to his mouth.

“You’re alive,” he murmurs, smiling against her knuckles. “You’re alive.”

It’s another two minutes before Abby speaks.

“The test was successful,” she says. “Emori is producing nightblood on her own. There were...symptoms from the radiation when we got up to the level of the death wave, but for the most part her vitals remained steady.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Murphy says, not looking away from the blisters on Emori’s face. “I don’t give a fuck what happened during the test.”

“Luna’s gone,” Raven says. “She refused to give any more marrow. She left during the test.”

“I don’t care,” Murphy says, putting one hand on Emori’s cheek and wiping away a smear of black blood. “I don’t care about any of you right now.”

They seem to figure out that he doesn’t want to talk to them and start discussing what they’ll do now that Luna is gone. Raven says something about Jaha finding a bunker and they debate the best way to get back to it. Murphy smooths Emori’s hair away from her face and keeps her left hand clasped tightly in his.

She wakes up about an hour later, coughing up black blood. Murphy helps her onto her side and she spits the black blood onto the floor. She finally looks at him and tears fill her eyes.

“John?”

“Shh,” he says, pulling her into his chest. She wraps her arms around him, shaking. “It’s okay. We’re alive.”

“I’m alive,” she whispers, and he buries his face in her hair, thanking whatever God cares that she is alive.

“We can make more with the one dose we have,” Abby is saying behind them.

“We don’t have time,” Clarke says, shaking her head. “Our best bet is to get to the bunker and manufacture it there. We’ll be able to leave sooner, at least.”

They argue more and Murphy tunes them out, helping Emori to clean off the black blood and wrap bandages around her blisters and wounds. They leave the others to their arguing and nestle into each other in Becca’s office.

“I used to dream about being a nightblood,” Emori says. Murphy runs his fingers along her sides. “I used to dream about being Commander and making people like me equal.” She laughs bitterly into his side. “What a stupid child I was.”

“That wasn’t a stupid dream,” Murphy says, watching as the others argue below them. “When I was a kid, I used to dream about being one of the privileged. I used to pretend that I could do things like play chess, or have time to read books. It was a great dream. Gave me something to do while my mom was drinking.”

Emori is silent after that and Murphy wonders what she’s thinking about.

It’s eventually decided that they are going to the bunker and bringing their only other dose of nightblood with them. The plan is to manufacture more in the bunker. Murphy finds out from Miller that they took extra marrow from Luna in case she disappeared after they tested Emori. Of course they did.

Murphy is just grateful that Emori is breathing.

* * *

It’s no surprise when they find out that the bunker is going to be cut down to just 300 of each clan. Murphy almost laughs when he finds out. He and Emori hear that Bellamy and Clarke are going back to the island to get Raven and exchange a glance.

“I can survive out there but you can’t,” Emori says. “They’ll have the nightblood. We need to get it.”

When they slip in, Emori’s skin still healing from the blisters, the look on Clarke’s face is enough to guarantee that they will be coming along. Murphy sees Abby tuck the nightblood serum into Clarke’s bag and makes a mental note of where it is.

The journey is long and exhausting and they pick up a stray Ice Nation assassin along the way, but the shock on Raven’s face makes it worth it. And then Raven says that somebody will have to send the signal from the satellite, and everyone turns to Emori.

“No,” Murphy says, panic sparking in his chest. “No, why her?”

Emori draws herself closer to him and he can feel her shaking.

“She can survive in the radiation,” Clarke says. “If something happens-”

“You’ll leave her here?” Murphy demands. “Really? After using her like a fucking lab rat, you’d leave her here?”

“Murphy, we don’t have time for this,” Clarke says.

“No,” Emori says. “I won’t do it. Not alone.”

“Nobody else can metabolize radiation the way you can,” Clarke says desperately. “Anyone else you bring with you will die if you don’t make it back in time.”

“You have another dose,” Emori says, fire in her eyes. “You have another dose, give it to me.”

“We need it to make more nightblood,” Monty says.

“For who?” Emori snaps. “All of you up in space? You’ll be up there together for five years, and then you can come home. I’ll be alone if anything goes wrong. Give me the other dose. I’m not doing this alone.”

“Who will you inject?” Clarke asks, but everyone already knows the answer.

* * *

They barely make it back into the lab as the death wave hits. Murphy vomits black blood onto the cold floor and Emori talks him through the symptoms through her tears. They stay in the lab for a week, until Murphy’s body heals, then they make their way to the surface. Emori stares out at the barren wasteland around them.

“Where is the water?” she asks, wrapping her arms around herself. Murphy stares at the desert.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “But we need to get moving. There has to be somewhere that we can live. We’ll find the rover first.”

It takes them almost three hours to dig out the rover, and another three days before they find the valley. When they step over the ridge and see the green, Murphy wraps his arms around Emori and cries. She laughs, pulling him along into the valley. Murphy remembers his first days on the ground as they walk through the lush forest, how all the colors seemed too bright for his eyes. Emori loops her arm through his and they talk about where they’ll find food, where they’ll live, what they’ll do.

Emori’s smile when they find the lake is bright enough to outshine the sun. They strip down and jump in, the cool water a refreshing relief after the burning sun of the desert. Murphy has never been swimming before, so he stays close to the shore, but Emori ventures out into the deeper water, ducking her head under the water. Murphy’s breath catches when she doesn’t come up for a few seconds, but then she pops up right in front of him and spits a stream of water in his face. He laughs, catching her around the waist and pulling her under with him.

By the time they get out of the water, their fingertips are wrinkled but they’re cleaner than they’ve ever been.

* * *

They spend days clearing out the bodies of the villagers and burning them. They take the clothes and supplies they can and try to be respectful with the rest. Emori finds traps laid all around the woods and disables them. Murphy wonders if they were set by the clan that used to live in the valley or if maybe he and Emori aren’t alone.

They’ve been living in the village for a little over a week when they first see the little girl. She’s six, maybe seven, with wild hair and a spear. Murphy and Emori are sitting at a table in the center of the village, eating some of the berries that they found in the meadow nearby. Murphy shoots to his feet at the sight of the girl and Emori gets up too, staring.

“Hello?” Murphy says cautiously. Emori says something in Trigedaslang and the little girl shouts back, “Die, Flamekeeper!” and throws the spear at them. Murphy pulls Emori to the ground with him and shouts, “We’re not Flamekeepers!”

Emori stands up. The girl is still standing there, watching them curiously, but she has a knife. Emori takes her own knife out of her belt and the girl bares her teeth at them. Emori just smiles and drags the knife across her palm.

“Emori!”

“Look,” Emori says, ignoring Murphy. She lets black blood drip down her fingers. “We’re like you. We’re not here to hurt you.”

The girl watches Emori’s blood drip into the grass for a minute before cautiously coming by them. Murphy shows her one of his cuts from disabling the girl’s traps and she seems satisfied by the black blood that they all share. Emori wraps the wound on her hand and Murphy grins at her.

They aren’t as alone as they thought.

* * *

“Madi!” Murphy shouts. “Madi, it’s time for lunch, clean off whatever dirt you’ve got all over yourself this time!”

He and Emori have been on the ground for almost two and a half years. The valley feels more like home with every day that passes. He and Emori and Madi all live in one of the cabins in the village and despite the sass that Madi (who is now almost nine) is learning from them, she’s sweet and already treats them like they’re her parents.

“John!” Emori shouts, her voice heavy with pain. Murphy immediately drops the wood he’s been holding and sprints to the cabin. She’s standing in the doorway, her face screwed up in pain, one hand on her stomach. She looks up at him when he gets there, her breathing heavy.

“Is it time?” Murphy asks. She just nods and he screams for Madi to get her ass over to the meadow with the towels. He helps Emori down the steps and directs her to the spot that they had decided on when they first realized that she was with -

He swallows hard. He can’t even think the words. That will make it real.

Madi holds Emori’s hand and smooths her hair away from her face and Murphy tries his best to do what he thinks is right. None of them know what they’re doing. Emori reaches out for Murphy’s hand at one point, tears running down her face.

“John,” she gasps. He scrambles up to her side, putting one hand on her cheek and brushing away a tear with his thumb.

“You’re doing great,” he says.

“John, what if they’re not like us?” she sobs. “What if their blood- what if the radiation-”

“They’re going to be fine,” Murphy promises, even as the same fears replay in his own head. He’s laid awake many nights, Emori sleeping next to him, trying not to think about what would happen if the child didn’t have nightblood. But they would, they had to, both parents had nightblood-

He shivers at the thought of being a parent and says, “It’s going to be okay.”

It’s almost nightfall when Emori lets out one final, terrible scream and the baby falls into Murphy’s hands. Madi hands him a knife and he cuts the umbilical cord with shaking hands, lifting up the baby. Emori sobs, pressing her hands to her face.

“It’s a boy,” Murphy says, grinning at her.

“Is he… is he a frikdreina?”

That is a fear that Emori has whispered to him many times. It was never anything Murphy feared, but he knows that Emori is always afraid of the thing that made her people cast her out.

“No,” Murphy says, scooting up by her head. “No, he’s beautiful, Emori.”

She moves her hands away from her face and laughs and Madi leans over to look and Murphy thinks that this - the four of them bathed in the light of the sunset, hearts brimming with joy - is all that he’ll ever need.

* * *

Murphy lifts Alex up onto his shoulders and Alex’s little hands reach for the low-hanging fruit on the branches of the tree. He tugs and the tree shakes as the fruit comes off in his hands. Another fruit pops off and lands squarely on Murphy’s head. Emori laughs at him from where she’s sitting in the shade, braiding flowers into Madi’s hair. Murphy doesn’t mind the pain, not when Alex is happily holding the fruit in front of his face, chattering nonsense with a brilliant smile.

* * *

Emori sets Alex in the water and he splashes around for a minute, grinning up at his mother. Madi dives in nearby, swimming in circles. Emori carefully takes Alex deeper, holding him up as he imitates Madi’s doggy paddle. Murphy sits in the shallows, watching them with a smile, splashing Madi when she gets close and Emori whenever he gets the chance. Madi spits a stream of water at him and he dives, grabbing her feet and dragging her under the water. They both resurface laughing.

* * *

Madi chases Alex around the meadow, growling and snarling and laughing as Alex shrieks and tries to escape the monster. Murphy laughs from where he and Emori are sitting on the porch, his arm around her shoulders. Alex picks up a short stick and holds it in imitation of Emori’s knife, turning around and letting out a high-pitched war cry. Madi pretends to scream in fear and runs away as Alex chases her with the stick. Emori gets up after a few minutes of this and scoops Alex up from behind, holding him out as he brandishes the stick and they both chase Madi. Murphy is content to watch.

* * *

Murphy bundles Alex in a few blankets and tucks him into bed, smoothing his hair away from his face. Madi is already asleep in bed next to him, snoring softly. Emori hums a lullaby, pulling the curtains over the windows and shutting the door tight so that the cold won’t creep in. Murphy takes her hand and twirls her under his arm, surprising a soft laugh out of her. She tucks herself into his side and he kisses the top of her head, humming along to the lullaby.

* * *

Alex is three when they see the ship hurtling towards Earth. Emori starts laughing, pressing her hands to her mouth, and Madi jumps up and down, waving her arms and yelling. Murphy is inside, trying to get Alex to eat (he keeps throwing the berries and yelling “rain!”) when he hears the commotion and hurries outside. Emori is already shushing Madi and staring at the ship.

“That’s not the others,” she says to Murphy. She turns to Madi. “Get inside. John, take Alex inside. I’m going to talk to them.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Murphy says, shifting Alex on his hip. “No way in hell are you going alone. If we’re going to talk to them, we’re going together. Where you go, I go; that’s the deal. That’s why we’re down here in the first place.”

“We can’t leave Madi and Alex here by themselves,” Emori argues.

“They’re probably less likely to hurt us if we have kids with us,” Murphy counters.

“I’m not willing to take that risk,” Emori snaps. She softens and puts her hand on Murphy’s jaw. “Please, John. Take Alex inside. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Murphy nods, something in his heart cracking when he turns away and goes back inside. Madi follows him and Alex seems to understand that something very serious is happening.

“Dada?” he says uncertainly. Murphy sets him down on the round kitchen table and smiles at him.

“I’ll be right back,” he says. “Madi is going to watch you, okay? But you have to be very quiet. Can you do that for me?”

Alex nods, his lip quivering. Murphy kisses his forehead and pulls Madi into his side in a quick hug, saying, “I’m going to follow Emori.”

He grabs his rifle and takes off after Emori. When he reaches the tree line by the ship, Emori has her hands in the air, guns trained on her.

“Please,” she says. “I just want to talk.”

“Are there others?” the woman on the ramp asks, clearly the one in charge.

“Three others. The rest are in a bunker miles from here or in space still. Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the woman says. “What happened to the world?”

“John can explain that better than I can,” Emori says, glancing over her shoulder at where he’s hiding. The look on her face tells him that she’s going to yell at him later. He steps out, training the rifle on the leader. The guns swivel to point at him.

“Are you one of the three others?” the woman asks, unfazed by the gun aimed at her.

“The other two are children,” Murphy says. “It would be nice if we could talk peacefully, without any guns pointing at anyone, especially not _her_.”

The woman turns her head and the men lower their guns. Murphy reluctantly lowers his rifle and goes to stand next to Emori. She smacks his arm.

“I told you not to follow me!” she hisses in Trigedaslang. Murphy shrugs and looks back at the leader.

“Our village isn’t far from here,” he said. “We don’t want to fight, we want peace. We also want to talk just to the leader. No others.”

“And I suggest the rest of you remain on your ship until an agreement is reached,” Emori adds. “These woods are riddled with traps meant for catching animals much bigger than you. They would be unfortunate to step in.”

Murphy’s lips twitch into a smirk. The woman raises her eyebrows and follows them. The rest stay behind. When they reach the village, Emori whistles loudly and Madi emerges from their cabin, Alex on her hip. Emori takes Alex from her and says in Trigedaslang, “Make sure the traps around the meadow are all rigged and ready to go. If anyone steps into these woods, I want them dangling from a tree.”

Madi nods and runs off.

“Where is she going?” the woman from the ship demands. Murphy slings his rifle over his shoulder.

“To make sure your people do what they’re supposed to.” He gestures to the table sitting outside their cabin. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am i going to continue this as a season 5 rewrite? maybe

**Author's Note:**

> am i going to continue this as a season 5 rewrite? maybe


End file.
